Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

A quick glance at the front page of your local morning newspaper may stir powerful emotions of curiosity, pride, joy, anger, sadness or any other sentiment depending on the day. Just as art purposefully conjures emotion and seeks to grab our attention, so do newspaper headlines and front page layout. It is, in an immediate sense art. Often this type of newsprint is passed down from generation to generation much like an exceptional work of art. With better technology, newspapers are able to use advanced layout and design, creating a front page that not only has visual appeal but also sells.

On November 5, the day after the 44th Presidential election, newspaper subscribers opened their front doors to a newly printed piece of history. Pedestrians gazed at historic headlines in newspaper boxes, ranging from President-elect Barak Obama’s campaign slogans to civil rights themes, to a single name. The Newseum features 724 front pages from 66 countries in their online feature “Today’s Front Pages” Wednesday, November 5. If you were curious to know Oprah’s favorite…the Chicago Sun-Times front page with the headline “Mr. President”. Read the rest of this entry »

Ernest Hemingway once said that there are two kinds of writers—those who want to write and those who want to have written. Most would-be writers fall into the latter category—they want what they suppose to be the glory of holding a newly finished manuscript or hot-off-the-presses book. And they assume there’s nothing to it, as if writing a book is akin to painting a wall. They’re the ones who, when they find out I’m a writer, start talking about the book they’ve been meaning to write, as soon as they get some free time. Like it’s something anyone can do while on vacation.

Believe me, writing a book is no day at the beach. From the moment you move from the what- a-good-idea-for-a-book stage to the put-your-butt-in-chair-and-crank-out-the-pages stage, creating a book is much more about grinding it out than it is about experiencing the joy of creativity. When it comes to writing a book, inspiration is highly overrated—usually by those who haven’t written one. A book is a chore. Read the rest of this entry »

There are two types of books in the world—those that writers choose to write for themselves (and with the hope, of course, that someone will publish them) and those that writers are commissioned to write. I was commissioned to write Every Way Possible, the first published history of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Or rather, to help write it, since it was far too big a job for a single writer to tackle, at least in the time allotted to do it—which was less than two years.

Okay, two years probably seems like plenty of time if you’ve never written an institutional history before. But the truth is, two years is barely enough time if what you’re trying to do is provide a reasonably comprehensive look at 125 years in the life of a major museum, which is what those of us involved in the Every Way Possible project were charged with doing. And by two years, what I mean is that at the end of that time, there would be printed and bound books in hand—which meant, working backwards from that point, we actually had about 16 months (one year + four months, for those of you keeping score at home) in which to research, write and edit a 300-page book (as well as find, identify and write captions for more than 100 photographs). The rest of the time was dedicated to designing the book (no easy task in itself), then getting it printed, bound and delivered. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo Courtesy of Lisa French

After writing or co-writing histories of the IMA, the Herron School of Art & Design, and the Indianapolis Art Center, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that the most important resource an organization needs to succeed is people. I know that’s stating the obvious, but it’s worth acknowledging. Without people committed to developing, sustaining and improving an organization (whether a multinational corporation or small not-for-profit) nothing of value will ever get done.

In my former capacity as the visual arts writer for The Indianapolis Star, I covered the IMA extensively, from articles on exhibitions and events to a large, multi-faceted package of articles on the Museum’s most recent facilities expansion. But the ones I enjoyed writing the most were the profiles I did of various IMA staff members—I can attest to the fact that the Museum attracts some of the city’s most talented, skilled and interesting people. What I discovered while researching and writing Every Way Possible, an upcoming book celebrating 125 years of IMA history, was that fact has always been true. Read the rest of this entry »